What is your cleaning recommendation?

Test for stains and for porosity please, unless you'd like to join the 5 or so horrifically disappointed quartzite owners here.

Buy polished. Not honed. Honed takes an almost maintenance free material and quadruples the work needed to make it look good.

I understand that. I couldn't find what I was looking for in polished. So the one I am looking at is honed. Would sealing the stone help with staining? Wondering if anyone has any real life experience with honed Taj Mahal.

We've had honed Taj Mahal for about a year, and I absolutely love it. It's very low maintenance; I clean it with a ph neutral stone cleaner. The fabricator said we didn't need to seal it, but it feels like there's something on it that either the fabricator put on or else it was like that when we purchased. It's not raw stone. I like that you can feel some texture on it too.

If you are set on honed, get a pH neutral stone cleaner, a soft brush like a fingernail brush, and some microfiber cloths. You should expect to have to wipe it dry with the microfiber, and to use the brush to agitate out the oil prints next to the cooking zone, or where people lean.

@stiley you are my favorite person right now! thank you! inlove yiur stone and kitchen. Can you let me know what cleaner you use?

This is the cleaner, but whatever is on the stone already doesn't let things penetrate so I've never had to really "clean" anything up. I have kids and a husband, so even though I clean the counters every day, sometimes things get left on it for a while. Like red wine, lemonade, grease splatters. I've read scary stories on Houzz about water marks around the faucets, but ours has been perfect. A few things went wrong in our remodel, but the counter was not one of them. :)

@stiley thank you for taking the time to send this!

Our honed Taj Mahal has had absolutely no staining in 4 years, even when wine and olive oil have been left on  overnight.   It is cleaned with nothing other than Dawn. Another advantage of honed is that under cabinet lighting is muted on the surface, no harsh reflection.  I am unsure whether our fabricator used a sealer.  We love the natural look and the feel of the honed surface.

Thanks so much! I've decided to go ahead and get the honed. I hope I like it :)

Hello! I am curious how you are doing with your honed stone after a year?

I don't have a concern about honed, so much, as for the quartzite concern. I love quartzite, but I'm concerned about hearing about staining people have experienced after installing it. Apparently it has something to do with the baths it is given (alkaline and acid) at the quarrying level?

Not all quartzite is the same and not every stone labeled as quartzite is actually quartzite. Do your homework. Test the slabs ... look for the Geology threads by karim_mt for easy tests you can do.

I have used 9 slabs of polished Taj Mahal quartzite in 2 kitchens and an outdoor kitchen. No staining at all.

@chispa Thanks. I'm familiar with quartzite and I know that there are people off passing off dolomite as other better stones. I wasn't actually referring to the finish or fakes or a particular color of quartzite. I was referring to this:

https://www.stoneworld.com/articles/91843-stone-summit-theres-something-about-quartzite

https://www.mbstonepro.com/blogs/stone-care-guides/moisture-issues-in-quartzite-everything-you-need-to-know